The Blazer Dress Meghan Made Everyone Want

Long before palace balconies and state banquets, Meghan Markle was recommending a single black blazer that buttoned into a mini dress. The Misha Nonoo Florence Blazer Dress appeared on The Tig, Meghan’s pre-royal lifestyle site, in a feature with its designer on dressing well for autumn, and it has quietly stayed part of the Meghan style story ever since, not because of the frock itself, but because of who made it.

That designer was Misha Nonoo, already one of Meghan’s closest friends by the time the piece appeared in print. Their friendship would go on to shape two of the most talked-about moments of Meghan’s life: an introduction to Prince Harry, and a front-row seat at a Roman wedding three years later.

This is the story of one clever blazer, the woman who designed it, and the friendship underneath it.

The Florence Blazer Dress, decoded

Misha Nonoo built her reputation on pieces that solved a real dressing dilemma, and the Florence Blazer Dress was a tidy example. In her Tig styling feature, Nonoo described it as a piece that “can be styled so many ways both as a blazer or buttoned up as a mini dress”: worn open over trousers as a tailored jacket by day, then fastened closed for an instant going-out look by evening. She encouraged readers to try it in white, framing the crisp shade as an autumn move rather than a summer-only rule: “we dare you to wear white after Labor Day,” she wrote, with the kind of confident, easy-luxury tone that became her label’s signature.

The dress belonged to a wider Nonoo philosophy of “one piece, several outfits”: clothes for women who travel light and dress with intention. It sat alongside other Nonoo staples of the period, including the boxy, borrowed-from-the-boys Husband Shirt, in a collection built around versatility rather than trend-chasing. That same instinct for a hard-working wardrobe has echoed through Meghan’s own style choices ever since.

The Husband Shirt that started it all

If the Florence Blazer Dress showed Nonoo’s design thinking, the Husband Shirt showed how deeply Meghan believed in it. The crisp, oversized white shirt, cut to look borrowed from a boyfriend’s wardrobe, was already a Nonoo signature when Meghan wore it to the Invictus Games in Toronto in September 2017, her first public appearance alongside Prince Harry. Nonoo later said she had no advance warning: “I had no idea she was going to wear it. It was a beautiful surprise and I was touched.”

The moment sent the shirt, and its designer, into the global spotlight overnight. Our piece on Meghan’s pre-royal Tig-era style traces the Husband Shirt’s full afterlife in more detail. What matters here is the pattern: Meghan doesn’t just wear her friend’s clothes for a photograph: she has worn them, repeatedly, at moments the world was watching.

How Meghan and Misha became friends

The friendship predates the fame on both sides. Nonoo has told interviewers that she and Meghan met years earlier at a lunch in Miami, seated beside one another, and simply “got along like a house on fire.” Both women were, at the time, building careers on their own steam: Meghan as a working actress, Nonoo as a young designer who had been a 2013 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist and named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30.”

Bahraini-born and London-raised before settling in New York, Nonoo brought a similarly well-travelled, self-made outlook to the friendship. The two bonded initially over shared charitable interests rather than fashion, a detail that fits the pattern of Meghan’s closest relationships, built on values first and styling second.

A friendship once linked to the introduction

Here the story brushes against romance. When Meghan and Prince Harry gave their engagement interview to the BBC in 2017, they confirmed they had been introduced by a mutual friend on a blind date in July 2016, but declined to name her, wanting to protect her privacy. In the years that followed, Misha Nonoo was widely rumoured to be that friend, though better-sourced reporting from E! News, Marie Claire, IBTimes, CBS News and AOL has since pointed instead to Violet von Westenholz, a childhood friend of Harry’s who works in PR for Ralph Lauren, as the one who arranged the meeting.

What is not in dispute is that Nonoo’s friendship with Meghan was already well established by 2016, and that it endured, visibly and warmly, long after the introduction took place, right through to Nonoo’s own wedding three years later.

A front-row seat at Misha’s wedding

On 20 September 2019, Misha Nonoo married energy entrepreneur Michael Hess in a Jewish ceremony at Villa Aurelia, a historic villa overlooking Rome, with the reception held nearby at the Cinecittà Film Studios. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended as guests of honour, given front-row seats at the ceremony itself. Meghan wore a sleek black tulle Valentino gown, reportedly valued at around £10,500, a striking departure from the softer daytime palette she favoured on official engagements.

The guest list read like a cross-section of Meghan’s wider circle and Nonoo’s own glittering address book: Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and Karlie Kloss among them, with musical performances from Jason Derulo and Sir Paul McCartney. For a couple usually surrounded by protocol, it was a rare evening spent simply as friends among friends.

Beyond fashion: the Smart Works collaboration

The friendship also produced something more lasting than a single dress or a wedding photograph. In September 2019, Meghan launched a capsule collection with Smart Works, the charity that helps unemployed women dress for job interviews, working with a small group of British labels including John Lewis, Jigsaw, Marks & Spencer, and Misha Nonoo. Nonoo contributed a shirt design, with the arrangement structured so that for every one sold, a matching shirt was donated directly to a woman preparing for an interview.

It was a neat full-circle moment: the designer whose Husband Shirt had once defined Meghan’s off-duty wardrobe was now helping other women build a wardrobe of their own, under Meghan’s patronage as a Smart Works ambassador. The collaboration says as much about the substance of the friendship as any red-carpet appearance.

Where the Misha Nonoo label stands today

Misha Nonoo the label has changed shape considerably since its Florence Blazer Dress days. In 2017, Nonoo shifted much of her line to an on-demand, made-to-order production model, aimed at cutting the waste built into conventional fashion manufacturing, and she later stepped back from traditional wholesale distribution to sell directly to customers. As of this year, mishanonoo.com displays a “launching soon” holding page rather than a live shop, suggesting the brand is between chapters of its direct-to-consumer story.

That does not mean the clothes have disappeared. Original Nonoo pieces, including past seasons’ blazer dresses, circulate steadily on resale platforms such as The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective and Poshmark, and Nonoo remains active on Instagram with a substantial following. For collectors of pre-royal Meghan style, a secondhand Nonoo blazer dress remains one of the more findable pieces from that era.

Why this story still matters

It would be easy to file the Florence Blazer Dress away as a footnote, a nice frock from an old lifestyle blog, long since discontinued. But look again and it is really a story about loyalty: to a friend, to a shared aesthetic, and to the idea that dressing well can be an act of support as much as vanity. Meghan has spent a decade championing Misha Nonoo’s clothes, at moments both quiet and enormous, and Nonoo, by most credible accounts, gave Meghan something rather bigger than a blazer in return.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Misha Nonoo Florence Blazer Dress?

It is a two-in-one design by Misha Nonoo that can be worn open as a tailored blazer or buttoned closed as a fitted mini dress. Meghan Markle featured it in a fall styling piece with Nonoo on her pre-royal lifestyle site, The Tig.

Is Misha Nonoo really the friend who introduced Meghan and Prince Harry?

Probably not, despite years of speculation. Meghan and Harry said in their 2017 BBC engagement interview that a mutual friend set them up on a blind date in July 2016 but chose not to name her, and Nonoo was widely rumoured to be that friend. Better-sourced reporting from outlets including E! News, Marie Claire, IBTimes, CBS News and AOL has since identified Violet von Westenholz, a friend of Harry’s who works in PR for Ralph Lauren, as the more likely matchmaker.

Did Meghan Markle attend Misha Nonoo’s wedding?

Yes. Meghan and Prince Harry attended Misha Nonoo’s wedding to Michael Hess on 20 September 2019 in Rome, sitting in the front row of the ceremony at Villa Aurelia. Meghan wore a black tulle Valentino gown for the occasion.

How did Meghan Markle and Misha Nonoo become friends?

The pair met years before Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry began, at a lunch in Miami where they were seated next to one another. Nonoo has described the two hitting it off immediately, bonding initially over shared charitable interests.

What is the Misha Nonoo Husband Shirt?

The Husband Shirt is a crisp white shirt cut to look borrowed from a man’s wardrobe, one of Misha Nonoo’s signature designs. Meghan wore it to the Invictus Games in Toronto in September 2017, her first public appearance with Prince Harry, and the piece became instantly recognisable.

Is the Misha Nonoo brand still active?

The label has moved between production models over the years, shifting to made-to-order manufacturing and then to a direct-to-consumer approach. Its website currently shows a “launching soon” page, though past-season pieces remain available on resale platforms and Nonoo is active on social media.

Did Misha Nonoo and Meghan Markle work together professionally?

Yes. In September 2019, Nonoo contributed a shirt design to Meghan’s capsule collection for the charity Smart Works, with a matching shirt donated for every one sold to help unemployed women dress for job interviews.

Where can I buy a Misha Nonoo blazer dress today?

The label’s own site is not currently selling new stock, but pre-owned Misha Nonoo pieces, including past blazer dress designs, appear regularly on resale platforms such as The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective, and Poshmark.

Details are correct as of September 2026 and drawn from contemporaneous reporting and Misha Nonoo’s own public statements; brand and stockist information changes frequently, so check mishanonoo.com and official retailers for the current position.